236 THE BOOK OF USEFUL PLANTS 



that the insects have to go for their nectar 

 supply. Of course it is imperative that the wild 

 species be planted near by. Only a few are 

 needed to supply many of the fruiting kinds with 

 pollen. 



Now the nurserymen who supply young trees 

 for an orchard of figs send the necessary number 

 of wild ones, and when the time of fruiting arrives, 

 (and that is within three or four years of the setting 

 of the trees) he sends a supply of the wasps 

 to get them established in the orchards. Usually 

 after the first supplies are received, the grower 

 pays no more attention to the means by which his 

 fruit is set. Nature has established an automatic 

 system of reciprocity between the insect and the 

 tree, and the owner has only to gather his figs and 

 market them. 



The giant fig trees of California are the wonder 

 of the visitor, used to the comparatively small 

 orange and other orchard trees he has seen. One 

 veteran, planted in 1856 on the Rancho Chico, 

 spreads 150 feet, and its branches, by striking root, 

 form pillars, like the banyan-tree of India. This 

 reminds us that the fig and the banyan-tree and 

 the India-rubber tree are first cousins members 

 of the same genus, Ficus. The sticky, milky 

 juice of the fig, that gets on your fingers when you 



